Météo-France: February 2026 Was France’s Wettest on Record as Flood Alerts Hit Unprecedented Levels

Mud lines still stain the shopfronts in the center of Saintes, tracing where the Charente River climbed over its banks in February and turned the streets of this western French town into brown canals. On a recent morning, pumps hummed and workers hauled warped floorboards out into the cold air.

“We knew the river could flood,” said Stéphanie Moreau, who runs a small clothing boutique near the Roman arch that became a symbol of the inundation. “But this, for this long, in the middle of winter — it feels like the seasons themselves are changing.”

A new climate report from Météo‑France suggests she may be right.

In a bulletin released March 4, the national meteorological agency said winter 2025‑26 brought a combination of heat and moisture that is almost without precedent in modern records. February 2026 was the wettest February ever measured across mainland France and also the second‑warmest, capping a season that ranked as the country’s fourth‑warmest winter since 1900 and one of its 10 wettest since 1959.

At the same time, the national flood‑monitoring service Vigicrues recorded its most intense season of flood vigilance since it was created in 2006, with red alerts posted for major rivers on more days than ever before.

A historic February

From Dec. 1 through Feb. 29, average temperatures in France ran 1.7 degrees Celsius (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991‑2020 norm, Météo‑France reported. The agency said only the winters of 2019‑20, 2015‑16 and 2023‑24 were warmer in its archives, which stretch back to the start of the 20th century.

Rainfall was also exceptional. After a drier‑than‑normal December, January precipitation came in about 30% above average. February then delivered what Météo‑France called a “historic” deluge: national totals at roughly twice the usual level, making it the wettest February in data going back to 1959. In many regions it rained more often than not, and in Brittany there was measurable rain on more than two days out of three.

The same month was also unusually warm. Météo‑France calculated a February temperature anomaly of plus 3.5 degrees Celsius compared with the late‑20th‑century baseline, second only to February 1990. Some southern and western areas briefly saw highs above 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), more typical of late spring.

“February’s rainfall pushed the season into the ‘unprecedented,’” climatologist Christine Berne of Météo‑France said in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, noting that parts of the country saw roughly twice their usual winter rainfall and “40 consecutive days of precipitation.”

The combined effect of persistent rain and abnormal warmth drove France’s national soil‑moisture index to record levels by late February, leaving river basins primed to spill over with every new storm.

An unprecedented run of flood alerts

Against that backdrop, three named Atlantic storms — Goretti in early January, followed by Nils and Pedro in February — crossed the country in quick succession. Gusts reached around 160 kilometers per hour (99 mph) in Normandy during Storm Goretti and more than 160 kph along the southwest coast during Nils, which grid operator Enedis described as an event of “historic scale” after about 850,000 households lost power at the peak of the storm.

But for many communities, it was the water, not the wind, that proved most damaging.

Vigicrues reported 30 days at yellow flood vigilance, 32 at orange and 18 at red — the highest danger level, signaling major flooding with threats to life and property. In all, there were 49 days with rivers under orange or red alert, more than double the 20‑year average.

At the height of the February floods, between Feb. 13 and 20, up to 174 monitored river segments were under some level of flood vigilance across 83 of France’s 96 mainland départements. Red alerts were issued for stretches of the lower Garonne in southwest France, the Charente around Saintes, the Loire between Saumur and Montjean‑sur‑Loire and the Maine and its tributaries in the low valleys north of Angers.

The director of Vigicrues, Lucie Chadourne‑Facon, called the episode “extraordinary in both duration and geographical extent” in remarks reported by French media. Météo‑France and Vigicrues described the level of flood‑alert activity since December as “unprecedented” in the history of the vigilance system.

Flood peaks on some rivers approached those of major past events, even if they did not always surpass them. Along the lower Garonne near Tonneins in the Lot‑et‑Garonne département, water levels neared those of the notable 1981 flood. On the Maine at Angers and the Charente at Saintes, gauges measured crests comparable to events in the early 1980s and mid‑1990s.

What stood out, hydrologists said, was how long the rivers stayed high, and how many basins were affected at the same time.

Evacuations, blackouts and crop losses

Authorities ordered preventive evacuations in several areas as waters rose against levees and rural roads. Around Angers, in western France, the prefecture said roughly 850 to 900 residents left low‑lying villages in mid‑February as a precaution against isolation. In the Garonne Valley around Tonneins, local officials reported more than 1,500 people had to leave homes and mobile‑home parks threatened by the swollen river.

Floods and windstorms also caused several deaths, including at least two people killed in western France in mid‑February and another in the southwest during Storm Nils, according to national and regional news reports. The Interior Ministry has not yet published a consolidated nationwide toll.

Electricity and transport networks came under repeated strain. After Goretti swept across the northwest on Jan. 9 and 10, about 380,000 customers lost power, and nearly 100,000 were still cut off the following day, Enedis said. Nils then caused widespread outages in Nouvelle‑Aquitaine and Occitanie, with repair crews working through flooded and forested areas. As of Feb. 20, about 13,000 households in western France remained without electricity mainly because floodwaters had not fully receded.

Roads from major ring roads and motorways to small departmental lanes were submerged or eroded in Maine‑et‑Loire, Gironde, Lot‑et‑Garonne and Charente‑Maritime, forcing detours and isolating some hamlets. Rail lines were temporarily closed or subject to speed restrictions when trees fell or embankments were saturated.

The economic cost is still being tallied, but early figures suggest a substantial bill. The French insurers’ federation France Assureurs and state‑backed reinsurer CCR estimated on March 2 that Storms Nils and Pedro and the associated floods in the west and southwest would generate about 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in insured damage. Insurers collectively extended the usual five‑day window for filing claims to 30 days because of the scale of the disaster.

Under France’s “catastrophe naturelle” regime, the government has already recognized at least 294 communes hit by flooding and mudslides between Feb. 9 and 24, entitling residents to specific insurance and state support. Dozens more municipalities have been added in subsequent decrees.

Farmers have been among the hardest hit. Arnaud Rousseau, president of the main farm union FNSEA, said in a televised interview on Feb. 27 that in some regions “around twenty percent of crops” had been destroyed by the succession of storms and floods, calling some of the losses “irreversible.” Local chambers of agriculture in western departments cited submerged fields, rotting winter vegetables and difficulties moving livestock, as well as concerns about disease in waterlogged soils.

Unseasonable warmth has added another layer of risk. The mild February prompted vines and fruit trees to bud early in several regions, leaving them vulnerable to potential late frosts this spring. Météo‑France warned that a warm winter does not rule out damaging cold snaps in March or April.

A glimpse of a warmer, wetter future

In its winter bulletin, Météo‑France placed the season in the context of long‑term climate projections. Using its TRACC reference scenarios, the agency has warned that in a France warmed by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, average winter precipitation could increase by around 15% to 20%, even as snow cover decreases at low and mid elevations.

The agency noted that the same atmospheric circulation patterns that brought wet winters in 1995, 2014 or 2016 now occur in a climate that is already warmer. That allows the air to carry more moisture and increases the potential for heavy rainfall, while higher sea levels and warmer coastal waters can exacerbate storm surges and wave impacts.

This winter’s combination of record‑wet February, very mild temperatures, saturated soils and back‑to‑back storms, together with Vigicrues’ unprecedented run of red alerts, offers a concrete example of what those projections could mean on the ground.

For residents of Saintes, Angers or Tonneins, the technical records are less visible than the marks left on walls and floors.

“We rebuilt once already after the floods a few years ago,” Moreau, the shopkeeper in Saintes, said, looking at the waterline in her store. “Now we have to ask if this is going to happen again and again every winter.”